By JOSH NEWMAN
Special to ZAGSBLOG
NEW YORK – St. John’s would not be part of the NCAA Tournament if it started tomorrow, but Sunday evening gave the Red Storm new hope that they can still find a way to sneak into the field of 65 next month.
A stellar defensive effort late on leading National Player of the Year candidate Doug McDermott and a team-high 19 points, including a game-altering 3-pointer with 2:09 left, from junior guard D’Angelo Harrison steered the Red Storm to a 70-65 victory over No. 12 Creighton in front of 6,739 at Madison Square Garden.
An 0-5 start in the Big East left St. John’s NCAA Tournament hopes for dead following an 84-83 double-overtime loss at Providence on Jan. 16, but it has now won six of seven to get to 15-9 overall and 5-6 in conference-play with seven games remaining.
The one loss during this string was a 63-60 loss at Creighton on Jan. 28 in which McDermott scored 39 points, including the game-winning 3-pointer. Before these last seven games, the Red Storm lost to the Friars, DePaul and Villanova over a five-day period by a combined 10 points.
“We just had a tough stretch where we lost some heartbreakers, and this could easily be a nine or a 10-game winning streak,” said St. John’s head coach Steve Lavin, who picked up his 200th career win on Sunday evening. “I knew early, we would have our struggles. I didn’t think we would be 0-5 in the league, maybe 2-3, 3-2. You’re trying to win every game, but as a coach, you can handicap pretty effectively.”
Sunday’s win gives St. John’s a chance over the next seven games to inject itself into the NCAA Tournament picture, but there is still a lot of work to be done. Realistically, the Johnnies would need to go 5-2, or even 6-1, over their final seven games to even be in the conversation. With as much talent as they possess, that is doable and the schedule is arguably in their favor.
St. John’s will have its work cut out on Thursday against an equally-desperate Seton Hall team at the Prudential Center, but will play Georgetown, Butler, Xavier and DePaul at MSG before the season is out. If the Red Storm beat the Pirates, Hoyas and Bulldogs in their next three to get to 18-9 overall and 8-6 in the Big East, a date with No. 6 Villanova at Wells Fargo Center on Feb. 22 would be massive.
If worse comes to worst and St. John’s needs to win the Big East Tournament to make the NCAA Tournament, it proved on Sunday it can beat the elite of the conference and it did so at MSG, the site of the Big East Tournament.
“We feel like we can beat anybody, I feel like we can beat anybody we play right now,” sophomore forward and reigning Big East Rookie of the Year JaKarr Sampson said. “We were always getting off to slow starts and digging ourselves holes. This past little stretch where we’ve been winning, we haven’t been digging a hole, we’ve been getting off to really great starts, so that’s the key, getting off to great starts and carrying that throughout the game.”
McDermott finished with 25 points on 10-for-18 shooting, but Sampson’s length and athleticism were key factors in him not getting a shot off over the final 8:41 of the game.
With the game in the balance, Harrison hit a 3-pointer from NBA-range with 2:09 remaining to give St. John’s a 65-63 lead it would not give back. He then proceeded to go 5-for-6 from the foul line in the final 20 seconds to salt the game away.
“This is a really good team, they’re dangerous,” McDermott said. “They’re competing a lot harder than they were to start the year and you can see that with their body language and how they communicate with each other. Their chances (in the Big East Tournament) are really good, too.”
FREE THROWS
Our Savior New American 2015 F Cheick Diallo sat courtside. He is a major priority for Lavin and his staff and attended the same high school as Johnnies big man Chris Obekpa.
